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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Brrr! it's a cold winter's morning here in South Africa and the wind is howling outside, not to mention the icyness of it! Makes it hard to believe the summery feel of this collection doesn't it? I really should be making some winter themed cards...

I think today's card was probably the easiest of the lot for me to put together and is the 'simplest' looking too.

I love these fabric flowers, they are so cheap to buy and versatile to use. I also love the choclate brown ribbon I've used throughout this project, it really PoPs against the pastel colours:

I used the music cuttlebug folder again, think I've fallen in love with it :) and the die cuts in the Birdie set!

The final product:

And the finished inside:

Hope you're all inspired, whether it be the colour choice or the layout :) Have a Terrific Tuesday!

Monday, May 30, 2011

Ok Ladies, after a relaxing weekend, it's back to work for some of us :) My weekend was pretty productive craft wise and I must tell you that I am almost caught up on all my week in reviews :) I will start showing them to you once I've finished showing you the card kit! I am very excited about them because I really was on a roll and I'v loved how each and every one turned out.

Anyway, I'm rambling, so let's get on with the card....

For those of you who like to know, I used the musical notes cuttlebug folder for the dry embossing on the cream cardstock for this card. It added a really whimsical touch without going overboard on the detail it created. I also paper pieced a birdie from one of the pattern sheets from this set, my hubby said it looks like it's nesting, too cute :)

The tab on this block is part of the die cut set, really easy to fold and work with.

The final product....

And, as has been the case throughout the set, I finished off the inside too:

Two more card to go everyone! and I hope I've got you excited for my scrapbook layouts...I'll show you how you can scrap with your 'scraps'!

Have a Smashing Monday! I'm sure the week ahead is going to be promising :)

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Whoopee! challenge time again! This time it's at AiFactory and the theme is pretty in pink! I'm loving all the pink colours flying around this week! don't you?

You can check out all the DT inspiration and enter the challenge yourself over at the challenge blog. You're most welcome to use any image you want, but wouldn't it be great to use an AiF image too? You can find tons of images to play with at the store, and even pick yourself some freebies!

Now, admittedly, I didn't know what to do with this single on a card. I don't really have a market for little kids in my card making and it poses a problem when I need some inspiration!
I did however have a brainwave and came up with something I would for sure put in my little girl's room if I ever have one :)

I started out with an old frame I had lying around, you can see how dirty it was! I cleaned it up and made some crafty magic happen...

First I removed the glass panel and the insert at the back with the stand on it. I cleaned everything with a damp cloth. I then took a roll of pink organza ribbon and started to wrap it loosely around the edges of the frame. If I had wrapped it tightly, I wouldn't have been able to get the glass back in. Then I covered the corners of the frame in paper flowers that come readily available with gems already stuck in the centres. I chose big flowers for the immediate corners and three smaller ones for the outer corners.

I then cut my princess image to size and placed her in the frame with the glass pane in front of her. I inserted the back panel with the stand and voila! She was in her magical pink kingdom :)

The entire finished frame looks like this:

I must say that I have reconnected with my love for altered projects this week amongst all the hustle and bustle of life and deadlines to get things done. Amazing how much inspiration can come from them and when you take a break from making cards.

I hope I've inspired you to make your own home project this week and that you'll join us for the challenge :)
Have a Terrific Thursday!

It’s amazing how quickly times seems to fly when you’re having fun, and how slowly it can drag when you’re having anything but…

That’s exactly how I’ve felt throughout this month, being a Guest designer for The Sisterhood of Crafters Challenge Blog. How did it all come and go so quickly? I remember when I heard I had been picked for May month in February of this year and I was so excited I didn’t know what to do with myself, especially since I got the news on my birthday! I didn’t know how I was going to wait it out until then, and how I was going to make something spectacular to try and live up to what they had chosen me to create?

So, my final project for the GDT this month is in keeping with this weeks challenge theme, Buttons. You (and I was) are challenged to make a project using buttons on it. I love buttons on projects, they are such versatile little things. They can be glued, stitched and even stuck on with double sided tape. They come in all sorts of different shapes, colours and sizes. How could you not love them? They can be used to make a pattern, stuck all higgledy piggledy, adhered all on their lonesome, or stacked up on each other to make a quaint Christmas tree decoration. Are you getting my point yet?

Now’s the point where I tell you how my crafting mojo fled me on this project. As hard as I tried to make a card with this theme in mind, I just couldn’t. I didn’t even have the will to make a Scrapbook page. Darnit. I scrapped two cards before I finally gave in to my desire to make a 3D item…last night…just in time to meet my deadline.

I chose classic ‘Petra’ papers, embellies, and buttons and created a fantabulous 3D item that I am so proud of my heart bursts J not really, but I think it’s really beautiful and that’s all that matters.

I made a little treasure chest of sorts using Matchboxes, glue (a lot of it), acrylic paint, paper, embellies and BuTtOnS! I took a few pics of the process, I think it will tell the story nicely, so please bare with me:

Where it all started, a bulk pack of matchboxes that had 10 of these babies in it. That makes 100 boxes in total, I used 12 for this project.

I took the 'drawers' out of the 'holders'

I made four tiers of the empty 'holders' by sticking them together with glue. I held them together with mini clothes pegs to ensure they stuck flush to each other. This enables them to stick straight.

I then painted them with acrylic paint.

This funny looking thing is the cardboard from the back of an examination pad of paper. I cut two squares from this to act as the top and bottom base of the project.

The squares were covered in pattern paper. this is actually the side onto which the matchbox structure will be stuck.

The other side of the square.

The tiers were adhered to one of the card bases. making sure they formed a perfect square and that each side had one open ended drawer opening.

The drawers were also painted in acrylic paint (by my hubster, who could see my time shortage for the project). I then stuck a piece of pattern paper in the centre. It's always in the details.

This is to show you the amount and pattern of the glue I adhered in order to get the bases to stick to the tiers.You can see I held them together with tape first, before adding the glue. This made sure they did not separate from each other and become wonky.

The Buttons were added to the drawers as handles :)

The completed project, embellishments and all!

Voila! I think this would make a perfect girly gift :) Can't wait to see how buttons inspire you!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Ok, so my blog header doesn't mean I'm going on a trip....not yet anyway :) And neither is anyone else I know. So why the Bon Voyage you ask?
Well, My hubster and I are toying with the idea of taking an overseas holiday next year around this time for our next wedding anniversary. We're planning far in advance in order to make sure we actually follow through and have enough money saved up by then :)
This formed the inspiration for my card today! maybe I'll give it to hubster next year as an anniversary card seeing as we'll be going away? ....

I went back to my BIG letter card kits I designed last month and made this one from one of the LO's. The card was so easy to put together because I had my notes etc on hand. All I had to do was cut and construct :) sooooo much easier than trying to figure out a whole new design!

I used a floraly/postage stamp set of papers for the theme and I love how well they worked together! I reckon I'm going to make a whole set of cards out of these :)

I have stamp set from KaiserKraft that has four 'goodbye' type pf sentiments. I chose the Bonvoyage. I stamped it in black and heat embossed it with clear powder. I Adhered this over a layer of four chord strings on the card.

The Big letter had a piece of pattern paper adhered behind it, and then stuck onto a square of plain contrasting cardstock. I stitched around the edges with my black steadler fine tip for more depth. I always find that a cards aesthetic success lies in the details.

I covered three perspex flowers in another pattern and then stuck white pearls in their centres before adhering them to the left of the big letter.

The card is an easel, so I used more perspex flowers to use as the stopper for the easel stand. I left them as is and find it balances out the busyness of the rest of the patterns.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Yep, and this week's challenge theme is Boys is will be Boys :) You can find all the fabby DT creations at the challenge blog and enter your own fabby creation too!
So, in honour of this Boy themed challenge, the DT were given a set of graphics to work with called Monstors, you can find it at the store here. A sneak peak of the set...

Now, of course we would love it if you used an AiF image for your entry, and you can even find freebies for that purpose here, but any images on your projects are welcome too :)

So, without further ado, here's my creation!

I used the popsicle image for my project this week. I printed it out quite largely on an A4 sheet of white cardstock. I then traced it, both back and front onto a piece of grey cardstock in order to form a card base. I adhered the popsicle to the front of my card.

My whole idea was that this would be an invite for my hubby to go and eat ice cream with me at an italian ice cream place :) smart huh?

In order to dolly up the image I stuck buttons onto the white spots on the popsicle image. In the centre of these I adhered silver bling stones.

I printed out my invitation message and traced around it with the posicle image in order to make sure all edges would stick flush. I then cut it out and adhered it to the right inside panle and added another three buttons just because.

The front of my complete invitation looks like this:

I imagine this could be used as an invite to a childrens party, for girls as well as boys. It was so easy to put together and I'll be adding this to my host of ideas for invites along this line.

Can't wait to see what you all create for the challenge this week! See you there!